Cleaned Transcript

The Gospel Context: Universal Salvation and the Syrophoenician Woman

Now we move to part two to look at the first reading and, if time allows, to look quickly at the Psalm. The theme of these readings, as always, is set by the Gospel. This is a very beautiful and mysterious choice. The Gospel is about the Syrophoenician woman who called out to Jesus and whom He apparently rebuffed, yet she kept right at it and became an intercessor for the Gentiles.

The first text is from Isaiah 56, and it speaks about how everyone is welcome into the family of God. The Jewish people knew that; as Psalm 86 says, "All the nations shall come to worship You." It was the dream of the Jewish people, and they were aware that an important part of God's plan for the entire universe was being worked out through them. How many times do the scriptures speak of it? "My house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples."

They knew that what had been entrusted to them was of universal and eternal significance. Where they stumbled was in thinking that they would be the exclusive custodians or givers of this gift—which they were, but ultimately in Jesus Christ, the eternal incarnate Word of God, who is Himself a Jew.

Isaiah 56: Justice as Divine Fidelity (Sedeqah)

The first reading is from Isaiah 56:1, skipping verses 2 through 5, and then continuing with verse 6. Some of those intermediate verses help set the overall tone:

"Thus says Adonai: 'Make fair judgments your concern (Shamru mishpat), and act with justice (Sedeqah)... for My salvation (Yeshuati) is drawing near, and My saving justice will be revealed.'"

In Hebrew, sedeqah (justice) means respecting and honoring the truth of every relationship. Notice how God's salvation (yeshuati) is paired in parallel with His justice (sedeqah). Why? Because God manifests His justice by being faithful to His promises.

He promises to calm our poor, doubting, cynical hearts. It would be enough for God simply to say, "I love you and I will take care of you," but knowing we would forget it in an hour, He binds Himself to a covenant promise. Because He has promised, He owes it to sedeqah—to His own justice and character—to remain faithful to Himself and to care for us. Thus, God’s justice is parallel to salvation: working His salvation manifests His justice.

What is the most supreme act of divine justice in all of creation? The Cross. On the Cross, He saves us and provides a salvation far beyond anything we could ever achieve on our own while stuck in sin.

The Inclusivity of the Covenant: Foreigners and Eunuchs

Looking at the intermediate verses of Isaiah 56 that are often omitted:

"Blessed is anyone who does this... observing the Sabbath, not profaning it, and abstaining from every evil deed. Let no foreigner who is adhering to Adonai say, 'Adonai will utterly exclude me from His people.' ...And let no eunuch say, 'Look, I am a dried-up tree.' For thus says Adonai to the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, choose what pleases Me, and hold fast to My covenant: 'I will give them in My house and within My walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will never be cut off.'"

In ancient times, not having children was deeply difficult because a family line depended entirely on descendants. Today, we observe a form of national demographic decline in places like Europe—where low birth rates fail to sustain future generations—often driven by modern consumerism rather than prioritizing family and legacy.

Loving the Name of the Lord and the "Holy Pagans"

Returning to the liturgical text of Isaiah 56:

"As for foreigners who join themselves to Adonai, to serve Him and to love the name of Adonai (Ahavah et-shem Adonai), to become His servants—all who keep the Sabbath without profaning it and hold fast to My covenant—them I will bring to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer."

To "love the name of the Lord" means to love the entire person of God and His divine presence made known through His name.

Cardinal Jean Daniélou wrote a book titled Holy Pagans of the Old Testament. Figures like Job (from the land of Uz), his friends, and Melchizedek were not ethnically Jewish, yet they sought and honored God. They demonstrate God's reach throughout history.

However, recognizing this does not mean Christian mission is unnecessary. It is a dangerous illusion to think, "Everyone is doing fine, so there is no need for missionaries." The greatest saints risked their lives and suffered martyrdom to bring the Word of Salvation to all nations. Knowing God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, receiving the Eucharist, and being anointed in the Sacraments is profoundly precious.

Fulfillment in the Church and Sacred Scripture

As Lumen Gentium (Paragraph 16) teaches: while it is possible for those who through no fault of their own do not know Divine Revelation to attain salvation by following God's grace, it remains foolhardy to deprive people of the fullness of Revelation.

Jesus explicitly quotes Isaiah 56 when cleansing the Temple:

"My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it a den of thieves."

Furthermore, as Jesus revealed to the Samaritan woman in John 4:

"A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem... true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth."

Worshipping "in Spirit and in Truth" means offering worship through the Holy Spirit in the Truth who is Jesus Christ. The Church is that house of prayer foretold by the prophets—the Temple of the Lord open to every nation, language, and people.

The Apostle to the Gentiles and Holy Jealousy

The third part of our consideration—the second reading—is from the Letter to the Romans. It is toward the end of the letter, a part in the middle, and then at the end. It is Paul reflecting, as he was last week, on his ministry. Remember last week: "I would wish to be cut off from Christ for the sake of my fellow Jews." What kind of deep love is that?

Now he goes on at another part of the letter and says:

"Now to you—I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the Apostle to the Gentiles, I honor that service, that ministry; I glory in it, so that I can make my own race jealous and thus save some of them."

That works, you know. When I lived in Israel, we had some prayer groups. Some were made up of Jewish believers, and they prayed with Palestinian believers. Sometimes there would be an event, like a wedding, where people invited Palestinian Muslim or Israeli friends. They would come and see the way these people related as believing Christians, and they would be jealous. Wouldn't it be nice to have a group of people you can totally trust, who aren't out to get your money or your house?

Searching for Wisdom: A Testimony from India and Israel

I remember once there was a couple whom I knew from India. They had been looking for wisdom. They were civilly married, but they went looking for true wisdom. They were in India, at the Ganges or another holy place, and one of the old holy men said to them, "You have to find Jesus Christ; that is how you are going to find wisdom." They were shocked. All over India, their mother and father had told them that, but they didn't pay attention. Now they go to a guru in India, and that is what he tells them.

So they wrote to me while I was in Israel. They said, "We would like to come and get married in the Church." I said, "Yes, come up." They hitched rides and traveled all the way from India in dungarees, T-shirts, and a small knapsack.

When they arrived, I said, "Now, you are going to need three months to get ready because you don't know the faith yet. I can't marry you as Christians when you don't yet know what Christianity is." They were open and spoke French, so I entrusted them to a young French-speaking community to work with them and prepare them. They did this for about three months, and I met with them as well.

"Behold How These Christians Love One Another"

Then came the big day—I believe it was Easter Sunday afternoon. We had the wedding in the Church of Dominus Flevit, the church on the slope of the Mount of Olives where the Lord wept over the city. There is a large window overlooking the entire city of Jerusalem. The sun was going down, bathed in golden light, and that is where we had the wedding.

I had another friend who had gotten to know them, an Israeli-born Sabra whose native language was Hebrew, but who translated French to Hebrew professionally. She was at the Mass and the reception afterward. We had finger food and wine, and the couple was dressed nicely—they borrowed a suit and dress from people in the community.

She said to me, "Who is paying for all of this?" I explained that the community borrowed the clothes for them, and as for the party, the community was simply thrilled that these people were coming into the Church and coming to know Jesus Christ. She looked at me and said, "They really do love them, don't they?"

That remark of Tertullian—"Behold how these Christians love one another"—still makes an impact. That is why Paul says, "I could stir my own race, my own flesh, to jealousy and save some of them." They see that believers have something special. You can have it too; just come to know Jesus, get baptized, and it is yours. It is just as much a gift to me as it is to you.

Rejection, Reconciliation, and Ezekiel's Vision

Paul continues:

"For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?"

That phrase, "life from the dead," refers to the prophecy in Ezekiel 37, where Ezekiel is told to prophesy to the dry bones. He prophesies over the bones, and the Spirit comes and clothes them with flesh. That was a vision of God saying to the Jewish people: "You are in exile and disgraced, but don't give up. I love you, and I will restore you to life." Paul is saying that if their initial rejection resulted in the reconciliation of the rest of the world, their ultimate acceptance will be nothing short of life from the dead.

Irrevocable Gifts and Modern Parallels

The liturgical text skips a section and moves to the conclusion: the gifts and the call—the charismata—of God are without recall; they are irrevocable.

Just as the Gentiles once disobeyed God but received mercy through the context of Israel's journey, Paul reminds them of where they came from. Pagan antiquity was filled with moral confusion. The Roman historian Tacitus once wrote that the Jews were "enemies of the human race" partly because they refused to expose their newborn children in the gutters—a common practice in ancient Rome where infants were left to die or be taken into slavery.

We have not advanced as far from the first century as we might think. In many ways, the era when the Gospel was first preached was what historians call "The Age of Anxiety"—a time when people felt uncertain and distrustful, much like today. Yet God's gifts and call remain irrevocable.

Papal Teaching and the Continuity of the Covenants

In 1980, Pope John Paul II spoke at a synagogue in Mainz, Germany, emphasizing the permanent validity of the Old Covenant:

"The first dimension of this dialogue—that is, the meeting between the People of God of the Old Covenant, never revoked by God, and that of the New Covenant—is at the same time a dialogue within our Church, that is to say, between the first and second parts of her Bible... Effort must be made to understand better everything in the Old Testament that has its own permanent value, since this value was not wiped out by the later interpretation of the New Testament, which on the contrary gave the Old Testament its full meaning."

After 55 years of studying Scripture, that is my personal experience as well: you hear the Lord and see the face of Christ within the Old Testament texts. I recall a meeting with a young Jewish scholar who noted that referring to the Old Covenant or Old Testament is a sign of deep historic respect for the foundation of the faith.

As Saint Paul summarizes:

"For God has delivered all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all."

Everyone owes God an infinite debt, and this is His way of revealing His mercy so that we are bound to Him in love. The Old Covenant and the New Covenant are two expressions—the preparation and the completion—of one divine plan of God.

Contextualizing the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 15:21–28)

Now we're going to look at the Gospel for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, which is from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 15, verses 21 through 28. It's the story of the Syrophoenician woman, as I mentioned before, but I want to contextualize it for you.

The story immediately preceding in St. Matthew is that discussion about why His disciples eat with unwashed hands and break their traditions. Our Lord goes after them and finally says, "You see, it's not what goes into a man that makes him defiled; it's what comes out." Therefore, in a way, He did away with all of those dietary and other ceremonial regulations. They're not necessary.

Then, by way of illustration, we have this story of Jesus going up to the region of Tyre and Sidon—which is north and a little bit west of Palestine—and talking to this pagan woman. As the Fathers of the Church saw with great perspicacity (though we moderns didn't see it, and in all the years I've been working with this, I never grasped it), that Syrophoenician woman is like the mother of the Gentiles. She is calling out, and she wins salvation for all the Gentiles.

The other famous story of a healing at a distance is the Centurion's servant—another Gentile. In other words, at a distance, Jesus is healing. But there will be a moment when there will be no more distance, because you will be receiving the Eucharist just as we do. So that's the background for this story, which is so beautiful and so illustrative for us in our own life of prayer.

The Encounter in Tyre and Sidon

So the text begins: leaving the place where they were having that discussion, He withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon, which is Lebanon today. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out to Him.

Now, she is called a Canaanite woman in Matthew. In Mark, she's called a Syrophoenician, which is saying the same thing because that is Syria, and of course, that's where the Phoenicians lived (Lebanon today). So this woman comes out who is a Syrophoenician, or in this text, a Canaanite woman—which is historically the same, as the Canaanites lived up there.

She comes out from that region crying out, "Have mercy on me, Kyrie—Lord, Son of David!" That's a Christian prayer; it's a Jewish prayer. Why does she know that? Did she hear Him? Was she one of those who walked down into Galilee when our Lord was teaching and healing? Did she know Him slightly? It is hard to know. But she's very bold because she has a daughter who is tormented. The text literally says, "My daughter is daimonizomai"—she's badly demonized.

So she's appealing—as St. John Chrysostom and Origen even noticed—this is a Gentile appealing for her posterity. Jesus is sensitive to that.

The Test of Faith and the Disciples' Reaction

But the text says He did not answer her a word. Why not? Is He rude? No, He loves this woman, but He wants to bring her to a higher level so that her intercession and the healing of her daughter reverberate through history and become a model for the Lord's care and actual gracing of the Gentiles.

So it says He did not answer her a word. She didn't give up, and He knew she wouldn't because of the care for her daughter. She's a mother.

The text says the disciples came and said to Him, "Would you get rid of her? She keeps calling out after us. She's following us down the street, and couldn't you get rid of her, Jesus?" Now, they don't hesitate to say that. Here is Jesus planning this thing in His own way, bringing this woman—like He did in another way for the Samaritan woman—and the guys are just saying, "This lady is a pain in the neck, can you get rid of her, Jesus? Heal her daughter, do whatever You want, but get rid of her." They're implying, "Heal her—you can heal anybody—heal her and she'll go home, and we'll be at peace."

That's not a very exalted apostolic motive, is it? I mean, they're nowhere—these pillars of the Church who, as the Preface for the Mass of the Apostles says, from their place in Heaven guide us still. Look how they started! Why do they put that in? So that nobody will think more highly of them than they should, and so that we'll all say, "Look, I was there, or I am there, but I could improve." Look at what happened to them—it's to encourage us! Scripture always tells their faults. In fact, it's a characteristic of biblical religion that all the heroes, except Jesus Himself, have all their faults laid out. Abraham lied about his wife, David committed adultery and murder, Moses got angry.

The Syrophoenician Woman’s Persistence

So He said to her, "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." That's His main mission, of course: to fulfill the promise that was made by the Word of God through the prophets for a millennium. "That's My mission."

So she comes right back. She worships Him—it says proskynēo—and says, "Lord, help me!"

Now, His previous remark was more or less to the disciples: "You want Me to heal this Canaanite woman's daughter, but I am only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Now she comes up directly and says, "Help me!"

He says, "It is not good to take the bread of the children and throw it to the dogs." That's not nice! That's a tough saying. Saying to the Canaanites, Syrophoenicians, non-Jews: "You're dogs." In that culture, to call anybody a dog was the worst thing.

Anyhow, she goes right past it because of her love for her daughter. She doesn't care. He can call her anything He wants, but she knows He can heal her daughter. Beyond everything else, even the preoccupation for her daughter, is this faith: "You can call me a dog if You want, but I know You can heal my daughter."

So she answers and says, "Oh yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters." In other words: "You're a Jew, and You're sent to the Jews. You're at a banquet here. You're feeding Your people with the Word of God day after day, with the power of healing day after day. Surely some of it must fall from the table, and we could eat that."

Great is Your Faith

He's thrilled to death! Now He's got a hero, just like the Centurion. Remember what He said about the Centurion during that other healing at a distance? "I haven't found faith like this in all of Israel."

And now He says to this woman—which is so beautiful—He says, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at that moment.

It is an interesting vocabulary: the woman says she is tormented by a demon, and He says she is healed. In other words, in that intimate and obscure area of demonic activity and sickness—ultimately, since the devil hates man, he causes all the sickness he can, he causes all the abortion he can because he hates—she's right that a demon is bothering her daughter. And our Lord just says, "O woman, great is your faith."

When we read these passages, we should pray and try to enter into our Lord's thrill at this faith. It's the same when He describes the prayer of that tax collector in the back of the Temple compared to the Pharisee. The devout soul goes up to the front, thanking God for all the good things that he does, while the guy in the back is just saying, "O God, be merciful to me, a sinner." When you read the text, pray to the Holy Spirit to hear how our Lord's heart leaps as he hears that prayer. He is more identified with him than He is with the Pharisee. He who is pure, divine, spotless holiness is more identified with this sinner than He is with the guy in the front. Just read it and feel that enthusiasm! I promise you, this one went home justified, not that one.

Here you have the same thing: "O woman, great is your faith! I am so proud of you. You come from a Gentile background, you didn't have good Jewish training, but you know I've got this power and you're calling me by the right words. You're calling Him Kyrie, calling Him Son of David. I rebuff you, and you take it and rise, rise, rise! So now we're talking, and I love you, and I admire your faith. Let it be done as you wish."

At that moment, the daughter was healed. That's the story.

We can read there the love in the heart of Christ for all unbelievers. The solution is not to say, "Well, they're doing fine." No, the solution is recognized in how many millions have gone out and risked their lives—and sometimes been martyred—because to be inside the Gospel makes it thousands of times easier to attain salvation than to be outside the Gospel. And that's very important to remember: "Woman, not great is your luck; woman, great is your faith!"